Guest Author: Joseph Foo ’26
Community Arts: The Bridge Between Aspirations and Immediacy
I remember the first time walking into a museum as a kid and thinking how amazing it was to find a space filled with so many stories and beautiful artworks. Back then, the arts were a distant aspiration, one that I could only admire from afar but never be a part of. I also remember being a first-year college student with access to some of the best arts spaces at Harvard, yet feeling like there was an intimidating benchmark of excellence to belong in those spaces. Though some of these feelings are beyond my control, much of it was an internal struggle to decide how I wanted to engage with the arts. These thoughts have followed me throughout my undergraduate years, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to experience a new flavour of the arts during my Winter Internship with Pao Arts Center, made possible by the Mignone Center for Career Success (MCS).
Pao Arts Center is a community-based arts, cultural, and educational organization in Chinatown, and its programming celebrates and strengthens the AAPI community in Chinatown and Greater Boston. During my time there, I was involved in a buffet of projects, with the two main dishes being the 2026 Lunar New Year Celebration and the Year of the Horse Exhibit. In preparation for these events, my responsibilities were a blend of creative and administrative flavours, ranging from drawing up artist contracts to curating the art pieces for the exhibition. Moreover, each day involved a mix of reflecting on past programming, adapting insights to the present events, and charting the future trajectory.
On any given day, I would be working with various managers simultaneously, juggling administrative, creative, and developmental tasks. As such, I was blessed with a rewarding lazy Susan experience, rotating between the specialties of each role and appreciating their coalescence into a comprehensive program. Following this unique experience, there are two practical takeaways that I find worth sharing. The first is the value of a synergistic detail-context perspective, paying attention to the meticulous details without losing sight of why (or if) they matter in the big picture. The second is the disposition of presenting suggestions rather than problems. Issues will always arise, and solutions may not always be evident, but the initiative to provide timely and thoughtful suggestions is always helpful. Though these insights may not seem specific to the arts, they are, in fact, shaped by my experience of working in a community-based arts organization. Every day, people new and old walk through the door, and the eclectic community that Pao Arts Center serves is both heartening and challenging. For some, the community arts space and programming are emotional lifelines, and for others, they are passing interests. Furthermore, creative passion can be as refreshing as it is complicating when faced with logistical limitations. However, thoughtful initiative and perspectival dexterity offer a way to navigate rather than deny these realities.
The arts can be both a collective and individual experience, which means every artist, every resident, every visitor brings something different to shared community arts spaces and events. By celebrating this eclectic convergence while tactfully embracing the concomitant challenges, my exposure to community-based arts has been fruitful in shaping my approach to the arts. Moreover, an unexpected benefit of having the front desk as my workspace is that I have many opportunities to experience these takeaways first-hand. There was once when I had to pivot from organizing artist proposals with my Excel wizardry to sharing about early immigrant communities in Boston to a group of visitors. On another occasion, I abandoned my delectable steamed eggs during lunch to chat with a few seniors about our hometown memories. These small spontaneous encounters were not what I expected coming in, but certainly what I cherish.
Beyond working towards crystallizing bigger key events, the serendipitous opportunity to be a welcome presence to visitors and regulars alike reminded me that community-based arts is as much a broad vision as it is an everyday experience. A judicious curation of artworks is important, as is a beautiful Canva design. The prudent wording of contracts is essential, as is a meticulous logistics record. Yet, I believe these things are most fulfilling when done in the hopes of, and not in place of, seizing each moment to use the arts as works and spaces of human connection.
Moving forward, I will be giving much thought to supporting arts spaces that are aspirational yet immediate, and collectively appreciable yet personally resonant. In the meantime, I hope you will visit the Pao Arts Center for the Lunar New Year programs running between February and March, experiencing the arts through your own eyes and connecting with it in your own way.
